Nehrim and modding the mod

October 11th, 2010, 21:00

I hated that region. It slowed my computer down to a crawl. All the other regions were just fine, but that one I had to get rid of a lot of graphic options to just play it.

I found that area tough. I was lvl 20 or something close to that and those crypts/dungeons I entered were some of the hardest I encountered. I still could clean them out, but it took more than a few swings from my sword or a blast from my fireball to do it. I had fun in those dungeons, not so much when I got back outside. I didn't like having to tone everything down outside just to get it to run properly. So I bypassed pretty much everyone I encountered and just entered the dungeons.

As for your question, I really don't know. I just ignore it anyways and go wherever I want.

The region levels are just a very loose guide. It's telling you that these creatures are a little tougher than a region with 24-28 level creatures. It really doesn't correspond to character levels; at least not acccurately. I will say that even at level 25+, I need to make sure I don't get surrounded. I'm fine if it's 1-3/1 but more than that and I'll be damaged quicker than I can recover.

As for levels - Ok, I see, so just a relative power indicator. I also have trouble with more than a pair of creatures..which is good (kind of) as long as its not all the time.
I've also found quite a few untranslated notes etc in arb little places, which looked like they might be important. Still, this mod is an amazing effort and I'd hate to sound ungrateful.

What setting are you guys running on? My perf is generally jerky in any town - especially Erothin *stutter*skip*Lurch* etc. I had to turn down draw distances on objects/npc's etc to get it to run at ~25 fps. I have it on 1600x1200, only partial water reflections, light shadows (no trees), all optimizations (streaming etc) on etc. I think the biggest problem is their desire to get an open word with no loading screens - the Oblivion trick was to force entrance into city via a gate - so you could have a low-poly shell for the city wall and only load city geometry on entry - which is sensible but not as nice. I make sure I approach a city at walking pace ;-) I wander if my cpu is a little too weak? Its a core2duo 2.6 (few years old now). I'm upgrading CPU, mobo, mem in a few weeks so I'm hoping for a boost from that.

I have a fairly new quad and an okay Gefore GTS 240 and it runs fine for me everywhere but the Dark Forest. If you're struggling in cities, the Dark Forest will make you weep. That said, I'm running with most things on except grass. I always turn grass off because it hides ingredients/treasure and I wants my stuffs

As far as untranslated notes, a modder is translating as she plays through the game so you can grab her mod. Her nickname is Aisis or something similar:

I had the biggest performance boost from disabling distant buildings and a little from tweaking the memory/streaming settings to fit my PC (effectively 3GB in XP). With that it runs OK in most normal places on my rather old rig. I am sure it will stutter in the more severe areas mentioned above.

Thanks for the comments - my setup is generally playable, but not as smooth as I'd like (I'm a fussy gamer ;-) Oddly enough, the Dark Forest was fine (everything but tree shadows on) until I cast a spell - somehow the spell effect would cause the frame rate to drop to almost zero momentarily. And some creatures caused it to drop too..very odd. Turning off distant land fixed everything but the env looks less sinister. I haven't tried turning off distant buildings though - may try that if I have problems .

I stuck religiously with the storyline doing no side quests as a kind of experimental first run through. This gradually put me ahead of the level indicators by several levels. Some current to-do quests suggest 10 more levels before attempting them. This caused me to rethink and change tack because now that i have re-connected with Kim my beautiful and extremely capable dedicated follower, i have gone against my initial aim and began to free-roam together…. to put the main quest line to one side and "totally free roam"

I'm going for locating the full armour sets if possible, finding as many dungeons, caves etc' - this obviously will take some time yet should put me way in front in respect of power/storyline ratio level but hopefully somewhere in due course will pick up the main quest line and continue where i left off, i hope this tactic works out o.k. - one pop-up is already showing that a main quest is waiting to progress but i am ignoring it as i have many progressive saves should i need them.

I have high sneak skill (can stand right under the nose of some opponents) and high bow marksman where together each shot is X4 gain if not detected, so the further back from the target you can go before detection will give equivalent of 8 shots for the 2, before any onslaught and often enough for a kill (the secret being to keep Kim some distance behind you to prevent her initial detect attack - this can make for some successful kills without Kim even moving - as once she moves in, the more (if any) opponents will join in.
Was fighting with some bad fire mage and powerful skeleton in the creator crypt when i saw Kims body flying 50 metres through the air, i suspected she was dead but have found she always recovers after a short knock down, i'm not quite sure but would love to learn which spell or skill blows the opponent back some distance weather it's a melee or bow or spell ??? - thankfully Kim will always heal me if i am really low on health. All in all, kim is quite a girl…as a follower.

Don't get too attached to anyone unless you want severe disappointment once you get back to the main quest. I abandoned the main quest at a certain point because the game wasn't headed in the direction that I, as the player character, would pursue. This will cause certain areas not to open up for me, but I hope to be able to hack my way into most of those areas. After all, I won't care about breaking the main quest

Well, that was mostly a fun 2 weeks. I say mostly because the game not only crashed on me but also crashed my computer to a complete shut down. When ever I was in a dungeon and an enemy was around some corner, the computer would freeze. I felt like I was playing the release version of Gothic 3.

Still, this was a very nice world to explore. And unbelievabley huge. I never played the main story line I just wandered the lands. And it got incredilby scary when my level 6 charaacter was exploring the northern areas of the map. Lost of running and jumping. good times.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
Well, that was mostly a fun 2 weeks. I say mostly because the game not only crashed on me but also crashed my computer to a complete shut down. When ever I was in a dungeon and an enemy was around some corner, the computer would freeze. I felt like I was playing the release version of Gothic 3.

Still, this was a very nice world to explore. And unbelievabley huge. I never played the main story line I just wandered the lands. And it got incredilby scary when my level 6 charaacter was exploring the northern areas of the map. Lost of running and jumping. good times.

But the crashing and studdering was just too much. On to Arania

I believe u have a faulty install… I for one didin't had any technical problems .

I've had a lot of hangs as well, every 20 minutes or so. It's worth it though, very good game. It took over 40 hours to get to the end of the MQ and still lots left. I've only explored half the map but it's now a little hard to get motivated. I would strongly recommend doing a lot more exploring before continuing the MQ. (the start of chapter 2 is a good place to stop)

It appears that small diversions at regular intervals in tandem with the MQ is a good level equalising method, there's even a hint on the game load screen suggesting this.
Attempting to clear say 1 or 2 non-quest caves/mines (and collecting some cool loot) for every 2 / 3 / 4 MQ's - as start ratio seems o.k.
I found many MQ's can be simply held in limbo even at some point part way though (as with mult-stage quests) and still be continued later but not forever as quest overlap might conflict - though i havn't personally met this problem as yet. The Main Quest line appears solid and unbreakable.

Yeah, i often get crashes when i exit the game - memory purge? -not sure.

I'm quite far in the main quest now and at level 20 - found 'you know who' (no, not valdemort ;-) , and just watched 'someone else'…off himself. Anyway, I was wondering when you start finding higher level spells? I can still only easily access level 1 to 3, and have found a few level 4…but there are 7 levels! Also, the level 4 destruction that I have I can't cast, even though my destruction skill is Expert (80 naturally + buff items push it to 105) and I have lot of mana. This is the only thing frustrating me at the moment (besides the crashes, which happen at least once a session).

Originally Posted by booboo
I'm quite far in the main quest now and at level 20 - found 'you know who' (no, not valdemort ;-) , and just watched 'someone else'…off himself. Anyway, I was wondering when you start finding higher level spells? I can still only easily access level 1 to 3, and have found a few level 4…but there are 7 levels! Also, the level 4 destruction that I have I can't cast, even though my destruction skill is Expert (80 naturally + buff items push it to 105) and I have lot of mana. This is the only thing frustrating me at the moment (besides the crashes, which happen at least once a session).

I am wondering about the spell level thing too. I finished the main quest and have restarted as a mage and the first time through level 4 was the highest I saw. It is a *lot* harder in general though because I know what I am doing I am actually dying less frequently than I did the first time through.

The crashes for me got a lot more frequent later on in the game. What was most disappointed about that was when I had just finished a very difficult section and it crashed when I was saving and the save was corrupted. :-(

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
I hated that region. It slowed my computer down to a crawl. All the other regions were just fine, but that one I had to get rid of a lot of graphic options to just play it.

I was wondering what was going on there. I just avoided it because it was like watching a slide show. A slide show with someone talking about each of the slides, too. Except for a little bit in Erothin I didn't have any trouble elsewhere.

Yes, even if you clear an area completely, wildlife will return in a few game days. Dungeons stay empty effectively forever, at least in the version I played. There have likely been a few updates since I stopped playing.